One of our articles rounding up experts’ views on what might lie ahead in 2022 was entitled ‘Reaching out to normality?’. Just about the only part that was right was the question mark.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, used his Autumn Statement to unveil the Treasury’s long awaited reforms to the Solvency II regime, which the UK did so much to create when it was in the European Union. Moving away from the EU regime is now touted as a “Brexit bonus”, writes Contributing Editor David Worsfold.

The coronation of Rishi Sunak as the third British Prime Minister this year has brought to an end four months of unprecedented crisis at the heart of British government, culminating in the calamitous collapse of market confidence in the wake of the mini-Budget on 23 September.

Dave Ramsden, Deputy Governor, Markets and Banking at the Bank of England, used a speech to the Securities Industry conference to discuss the recent shocks that have hit the UK economy.

The Bank of England’s enforced £65bn intervention to calm the stressed gilt market in the wake of the UK government’s unsettling “fiscal event” on 23 September has thrown a harsh, critical spotlight on liquidity.

Rarely can the managers of the UK’s huge institutional funds have been confronted with such uncertainty. This is not just the volatility seen in the wake of the global financial crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic or Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. UK economic policy is embarking on a journey into the unknown.